Wedgewood admits fake US polls, prompting media withdrawals

Wedgewood Polls admitted on October 20 that almost all its election surveys were fabricated, prompting US publishers and polling aggregators to withdraw its material less than two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, RT reported. The operation described its deception as a test of how readily a fictitious pollster could win public credibility.

The New York Times removed 15 Wedgewood surveys, while Decision Desk HQ removed 17. Newsweek retracted three articles and corrected others, according to the report. These figures describe separate withdrawals and should not be read as a count of unique fabricated polls.

Wedgewood had appeared only in June. Its figures subsequently received coverage from Newsweek, the Daily Beast and The Hill, and entered polling databases maintained by the Times, election analyst Nate Silver and other aggregators.

Survey records exposed the fabrication

Researchers at the election analysis website FiftyPlusOne challenged Wedgewood after examining underlying survey records and checking inconsistencies with the platform it claimed to use. Questions about the operation had circulated for months, but its figures continued to appear in coverage and polling databases.

In a statement quoted in the report, Wedgewood said it had gained acceptance despite lacking a track record, formal credentials or genuine data. It also said mainstream broadcasters, including MS NOW, had cited its work on air.

The group characterised the operation as a “social experiment”. That explanation is its own account of its motive, not an independently established finding. Wedgewood also claimed to have conducted one genuine, crowdfunded Nebraska poll; the report does not independently establish that poll’s authenticity.

Invented numbers reached campaign messaging

Several Wedgewood surveys purported to show Democratic Senate candidates ahead in Republican strongholds, including Texas, Ohio and Kansas. Before the withdrawals, those figures had supported coverage suggesting Democrats were gaining ground.

The numbers also entered campaign publicity. A Democratic Senate campaign in Mississippi cited a fabricated result to promote its electoral prospects. The report does not establish that the campaign knew the result was invented.

Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow said a bogus survey depicting a sharp fall in her support contributed to a decline in donations and damaged volunteer morale before she withdrew from the Democratic Senate primary in July. Those effects are McMorrow’s account; the report does not independently demonstrate the survey’s impact on fundraising or her withdrawal.